This stems from a thread from the 15th of this 
month, about Hobby Shop K selling a Please Save My 
Earth cel for $300 that they got from Yahoo Japan 
for only $50. My argument was that it showed "good 
business sense". I still think it does. I just went 
to their site and the cel is gone. It was obviously 
worth $300 to somebody. You may not want to hear it 
but it's true. Something is only worth what someone 
is willing to pay. Americans (as well as the rest 
of the world outside Japan) seemingly pay 
outrageous prices for cels. Unless we all stop 
buying, than it's not going to change.

Here's a little perspective on the situation.

There's a lot of news right now (at least in 
America) about the inflated price of CD's. The 
goverment is even getting involved, saying that 
record companies are "price gouging". I've worked 
in record stores for over 10 years now and I can 
tell you right now that NOTHING is going to happen. 
CD prices are NOT going to go down. As long as 
people keep paying for them, the prices will stay 
the same. The cost of manufacturing and promoting 
and all the other crap that goes into the CD is 
still going to cost the same. I can tell you now 
that my store barely makes a profit on what we sell 
as it is. We certainly have no intention of 
lowering our prices. I may love music, But I don't 
work a retail job for free no matter HOW much I 
like what I'm selling. 

When you deal with a collectible item you price it 
at what you think someone will pay. This may seem 
greedy. In fact in a lot of cases it is.(Comic book 
dealers come to mind!) "The proof is in the 
pudding" as they say. The cel is gone. So it wasn't 
such a bad move after all. People may not like it, 
but if they intend to keep collecting they will 
just have to deal with it. Cels are unique items. 
You will have to deal with whoever has the one you 
want. I don't like the expense of cels any more 
than anyone else. There simply isn't anything I can 
do, short of giving up collecting.